John Ruskin Biography

Dictionary of Literary Biography on John Ruskin

John Ruskin attained his reputation as an art historian and architectural critic with the publication of three works: Modern Painters (1843-1860), The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849), and The Stones of Venice (1851-1853). His central social theme in the last two works in particular concerns the relation of architecture to society, and he argues that the degeneration of society is reflected in its architecture. Building on this theme, Ruskin became one of the most important Victorian critics of the effects of competition, utilitarianism, industrialism, and the subserviency of all higher values to mere money-getting. His chief mature work of social theory is "Unto This Last": Four Essays on the First Principles of Political Economy (1862), first published in the Cornhill Magazine. Later important works include Fors Clavigera: Letters to the Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain (1871-1884) and his uncompleted autobiography, Praeterita: Outlines of Scenes and Thoughts Perhaps Worthy of...